Google forces a new Swedish word out of (official) existence

Google didn't like the word's definition; rather than argue, Sweden killed it.

The Swedish Language Council has nuked a word from its list of new terms for 2012 at Google’s request, according to a report from The Local. As of Tuesday, the council has removed the word ogooglebar (ungoogleable) from its list of new words for the year after Google objected to its definition.

Each year, the Swedish Language Council selects a handful of new words to highlight with the goal of advancing and cultivating the Swedish Language. In December, one of the words selected was ogooglebar, meaning a thing or person that does not produce relevant results when typed into a search engine.

Google took exception to the broad inclusion of “search engines” in the definition, and wanted the word to be defined only as things or people unsearchable on Google specifically. Rather than quibble with Google over the definition or bend to its request, the council removed the term from its list, while noting that this didn’t necessarily mean it would be removed from the language itself.

The Swedish Language Council was first established in 1944, and according to The Local, this is the first time it has removed a word from its annual list.

What happened was that the Language Council included the word (which indeed translates "ungooglable") with the definition "Something that can not be found on the Internet using search engines". Google wanted this definition changed to "Something that can not be found on the Internet using Google". The Language Council refused and eventually just deleted the word rather than go in to a legal fight with a rich multinational.

IANAL, but on trademark grounds this seems to make total sense. On that note, as a US-born, non-Swedish-speaker, I may have to start using ogooglebar just because of that proposed definition. "a thing or person that does not produce relevant results when typed into a search engine"? I'm sorry, but it just makes me smile a bit.

Seems to be a formality to me. Many company names that are household items become in danger of being too generic, and they risk a dilution of their trademark. Alyeska pointed out a few examples, and another well known would be Kleenex. It's great for how successful that brand has become, but it doesn't necessarily mean better business for that company. I may always refer to snot tissues as Kleenex, but that doesn't make me more inclined to buy the Kleenex brand.

How on earth is ogooglebar Swedish, other than maybe they came up with it? Certainly doesn't suggest anything Swedish to me. Its a fail in my book. Maybe they should try swoogle.

Because "o-" and "-bar" are specific Swedish prefix/suffix* that mean "un-" and "-able", respectively. "Google" is a noun, and thus not translated.

*Point of grammar question: should that be plural "suffixes", because of the plural verb form "are", or singular, because each is referring to a single thing? I'm honestly not sure how to construct a proper sentence with 2 singular but joined subjects and also refer to each individually in the object. Anyone know?

Language is not formed by corporations. If Swedish people want to call something ogoolgebar, they will do so without asking Google first. If the Swedish Language Council wants to be useful, it will reflect language as it is, not as corporations want it.

I don't think Google should rule a language like this. Sure, as a Swede, I wouldn't use this word but this is completely absurd. How long until Google becomes every country's "big brother"?

Maybe you should focus on the part where your country actually has something called a Language Council.

Many countries do. The alternative seems to have a spelling as complicated as English, so I prefer to have a silly council.

Most of what this council does is sensible. They make sure that official minority languages can be used in communications with the government, ensure that official communication is understandable and free from legalese and document changes to the language. It's this last bit that got caught here. As a way to spread the word about what they're doing, they every year release a list of new words that they have noticed. Newspapers write a little puff piece about it around the new year, and everyone forgets about the Language Council until next year.

This news is the very definition of the Streisand effect. I probably saw "ogooglebar" (really, shouldn't it be "ogooglingsbar"?) in a puff piece but if I saw that the definition included any search engine, I certainly didn't notice it. It makes Google look bad and the only thing they gained was the deletion of a single word on a silly list that noone cares about.

How on earth is ogooglebar Swedish, other than maybe they came up with it? Certainly doesn't suggest anything Swedish to me. Its a fail in my book. Maybe they should try swoogle.

There are many words in Swedish that derive originally from other languages. Traditionally the spelling has been changed to be "more" Swedish (though maybe even this has been relaxed in the last couple decades), but other than that there aren't huge barriers to linguistical entry (besides, even if the word weren't officially accepted by the Council people would still be using it).

Your article misrepresents the position of the language council: they didn't remove it from the list because Google asked them to, they removed it *in protest* at Google asking them to. Google asked them to "amend" the definition, and rather than do so they pulled it with the intention of provoking debate and as a protest to the attempted bullying by google

How on earth is ogooglebar Swedish, other than maybe they came up with it? Certainly doesn't suggest anything Swedish to me. Its a fail in my book. Maybe they should try swoogle.

Because "o-" and "-bar" are specific Swedish prefix/suffix* that mean "un-" and "-able", respectively. "Google" is a noun, and thus not translated.

*Point of grammar question: should that be plural "suffixes", because of the plural verb form "are", or singular, because each is referring to a single thing? I'm honestly not sure how to construct a proper sentence with 2 singular but joined subjects and also refer to each individually in the object. Anyone know?

If you really want to get crazy grammatical, you should probably say something like "Because 'o-' and '-bar' each is a specific prefix and suffix meaning 'un-' and '-able', respectively." Or you could even parse it out further to be even more clear by mentioning each separately.

Though considering the most important function of grammar is clarity of communication, I think you successfully managed that.

Google, even if it does not win, because of copyright laws has to at the very least fight to protect their trademark. The mere action of having tried to prevent this from happening, (even if they had failed) would strengthen their claim to the word Google if that ever becomes an issue in the future.

I don't think Google should rule a language like this. Sure, as a Swede, I wouldn't use this word but this is completely absurd. How long until Google becomes every country's "big brother"?

Maybe you should focus on the part where your country actually has something called a Language Council.

There are a lot of equivalent groups in the US and England. It's just that the Swedish government has one they specifically listen to standardize its own linguistic usage. The US government and society does the exact same thing except they do it by looking at those separate groups. I'm not quite sure what's so nefarious about it.

So Google has become the O[E]D of the web. I guess that would be OWD. GWD? Could Sweden use robots.txt to exclude the Google bot then use the word for the purposes of Bing searches? (After all, the competition is just a click away.) Naw, I guess that'd be copyright or patent infringement of some sort. Call in Prenda.